Updated March 05, 2025 at 12:40 PM ET
The Trump administration is moving at lightning speed to shrink the federal government and freeze federal hiring.
But some people are still getting jobs. Special exemptions laid out by the White House permit hiring to continue for those involved with immigration enforcement, national security and health care.
Even so, agencies that are supposed to be spared from the freeze are running into additional roadblocks, amounting to a shadow-hold on critical, lifesaving jobs.
The biggest barrier, according to an OPM official, congressional staffers, VA employees and veterans' organizations is that human resources officials across the federal government can no longer access their own new hire records without approval from senior leadership at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
OPM has effectively locked federal agencies out of a government HR software program called USA Staffing. The agency has been taken over by allies of billionaire Elon Musk, who's guiding the Department of Government Efficiency effort from within the White House. The DOGE team has engineered the mass firing of tens of thousands of federal workers since President Trump took office in January.
The real world effects can be seen in VA clinics and hospitals across the country, like the Albany VA Medical Center in New York, where nurse Gwen Freiermuht began wondering last month why they couldn't seem to hire desperately needed bedside nurses and nursing assistants.
"I was talking to someone who deals with HR and USA Staffing and they're like, 'yeah, we've been locked out for 10 days," she told NPR.
Freiermuht is a member of the National Nurses United Union, and union leadership said the problem is nationwide. NPR also confirmed the problem at VA clinics and hospitals in California, Connecticut, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The hiring delays come amid a well-documented shortage of providers for VA health care, Freiermuht said.
"On the floors, you don't have the staffing that you need to provide just the basic functions of nursing care that these inpatients need," said Freiermuht.
It's a change from OPM's longstanding practice, an OPM official familiar with the matter told NPR.
"This is the first time OPM policy or the Office of the Director interfered with the system's design in this way," said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the press. OPM did not respond to a request for comment.
The new approval process is creating lengthy wait times for agencies to onboard new hires, causing fears that those employees will go unpaid, their work will go undone, and that their personal information might be compromised.
It's causing chaos at agencies with urgent hiring needs, particularly at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where failure to bring in staff could quickly lead to medical emergencies and mental health care crises for veterans.
VA Secretary Doug Collins has said that job cuts and cancelling hundreds of contracts will streamline and improve VA.
"I'm telling you right now, that's not happening… the reality is, Veterans benefits aren't getting cut," Collins said in a recent statement. "In fact, we are actually giving and improving services."
Despite those promises many new mission-critical jobs at VA health care facilities have been on hold since early February.
"The assurances Secretary Collins gave veterans that VA doctors and nurses would be exempt from Trump's disastrous VA hiring freeze mean nothing when OPM is blocking the Department from hiring for these already understaffed positions," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., in a statement sent to NPR.
"These actions once again make it clear: this Administration is careless and unapologetic as it seeks to dismantle VA by preventing the Department from filling critical vacancies to deliver timely health care and veterans benefits," he concluded.
Changes to government hiring platform
The change was announced in a Feb. 10 "bulletin," which was provided to NPR by the OPM official. It was addressed to people working with USA Staffing, the software platform created by OPM to house and process new hire documentation for many federal agencies. Not all federal agencies use the USA Staffing platform. Agencies purchase annual licenses from OPM to use the software to process job applications and enter onboarding documents. According to USA Staffing's website, over 450,000 federal employees were hired using the software in 2024.
OPM's decision to block access to those records goes beyond the agency's typical role and responsibilities when it comes to supporting human resources offices at individual agencies. One judge recently ruled that OPM cannot direct staffing decisions or order firings at other federal agencies.
According to the bulletin, the change was enacted "in alignment with the President's Executive Order," to make sure new hires were indeed immune from the federal hiring freeze. The Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon and the White House are not subject to the additional layer of scrutiny.
The bulletin said that in order to request to view new hire personnel files, HR officials must select from a dropdown list of possible exemptions, including "military personnel of the armed forces or joining in a position related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety," someone directly working in Social Security, Medicare or veterans' benefits, or someone approved in writing by the chief of staff of the Office of Personnel Management, among a few others.
Then, their request will be marked "pending" and the wait to receive records begins.
Some agencies have resorted to using manual processes or paper records to process new hires in order to avoid extended delays, according to multiple people at the VA who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, human resources representatives at federal agencies are also losing their jobs as part of the Trump administration's workforce cuts, which will likely also make it even harder to bring on new hires.
Block on new hire records slows VA hiring
At the VA, particularly within the Veterans Health Administration, more than 300,000 jobs have been spared from the federal hiring freeze, as "mission critical." That's because they provide care to veterans ranging from surgeries to mental health care interventions.
Collins, the new VA secretary, has said repeatedly that veteran care and benefits will not be affected.
But OPM's block on new hire records is hindering the process of getting those health care professionals into VA hospitals and health care clinics.
In response to a query, VA spokesman Peter Kasperowicz said the VA is developing its own automated solution to process new hires in place by next week. He said to make sure VA benefits and services are not affected, department leaders can request additional exceptions to the hiring freeze and also request consideration for employees to be exempted from probationary removal.
"VA is working with the Office of Personnel Management to ensure hiring for exempted positions during the freeze is as efficient as possible and in line with the president's priorities," Kaperowicz told NPR by email.
Blumenthal and fellow Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who both sit on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, each told NPR they have constituents who work at the VA who have confirmed the problem with hiring through OPM's software. NPR also confirmed similar reports with three senior VA clinicians who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. Robert Couture, director of public affairs for the VFW, also confirmed the problem, but said staff at VA are concerned that speaking out will threaten their own jobs.
"A lot of VA staff are afraid," said Couture.
OPM took over the VA's hiring database in early February, preventing managers from moving forward with job offers that were approved. Human resources managers have received only "sporadic updates," from OPM, according to an email shared with NPR by a VA employee who did not want to use their name for fear of retaliation. Even when requests are eventually approved, HR employees have sometimes encountered additional roadblocks in actually sending tentative job offers, or had the files get locked again after viewing them.
Freiermuht, the VA nurse in Albany, told NPR the hiring delays add stress for nurses like her.
"There are a million and one tasks that have to get done within a day for any given veteran…so it's difficult to keep everything in order," she said.
Freiermuht is concerned about the impacts of the staffing shortages on veterans, particularly for mental health care. She's a veteran herself, who served in the Air Force on active duty for over four years before joining the National Guard for 12 years.
"I see a lot of veterans getting hurt in this process," she concluded. "Meaning they're not getting treated in the amount of time that they should be treated, or they don't find the problem at all."
According to one VA employee who spoke to NPR but did not want to use their name for fear of retaliation, their VA facility is waiting to hire a gastroenterologist, which is disrupting efforts to schedule colonoscopies at the start of Colon Cancer Awareness Month in March.
One Army veteran who is in the process of getting a job as a nurse with the VA says it's been nearly a month since he was notified that his new position was finally approved, and he still hasn't started. The nurse spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution or losing his new job.
According to an email he shared with NPR, the human resources representative processing the nurse's paperwork told him that his records were being blocked and the VA couldn't yet onboard him.
As a former Boy Scout, the nurse says he's always wanted to work in public service, which he describes as "one of the highest callings." He plans to work with veterans suffering from PTSD, addiction, homelessness and other forms of trauma.
But the recent chaos across the federal government is giving him pause.
"I have a low expectation of my privacy, but having unelected officials being able to go in everywhere now and access everything and just make decisions, that's not how I expected this to go," he told NPR. "It's been so frustrating."
NPR's Katia Riddle contributed reporting.
Have information you want to share about the ongoing changes at OPM, the VA or across the federal government? Reach out to Jenna McLaughlin, who is available through encrypted communications on Signal at JennaMcLaughlin.54, and Quil Lawrence, who is available at QuilNPR.10 on Signal.
Copyright 2025 NPR
